Set in the fictional town of Haplin, Minnesota — where industry centers around a bread factory and town politics are still dominated by one family — the show’s producers are trying to mix a little Stephen King with a little “Twilight Zone.”

“There’s nothing spooky on TV right now,” says Executive Producer Andre Nemec, who created the show with his co-EPs Scott Rosenberg and Josh Appelbaum. Nemec and Appelbaum have worked together since their days on ABC’s “Alias.” Rosenberg joined them on “October Road” and “Life on Mars.”

“Our goal is not to go toward gore. We want to capture a little bit of that old Americana gothic horror,” Nemec says.

Geoff Stults (“October Road”) plays the show’s central character, Deputy Sheriff Tommy Conroy — a family man who’s lived in Haplin all his life and married his childhood sweetheart. Tommy, also known as T.C., works for his dad, Sheriff Griffin Conroy, and seems content monitoring the town’s minimal crime and taking days off.

“That’s one of the things I really liked about this character,” says Stults, 32. “Typical roles for guys over six-foot are hero or big meathead boyfriend, and I’ve done all of those a lot. This guy isn’t a tough guy. He’s content working in a town with no crime and being a husband and a father.”

Formerly a professional football player in Europe, the chisel-chinned Stults says he related to his new role because he’s close to his own family. And he also understands small-town living; he grew up in Colorado, outside of Colorado Springs.

Nemec, Appelbaum and Rosenberg wrote “Happy Town” with Stults in mind.

“There were moments in ‘October Road’ when we would all think, ‘We should put a gun in this guy’s hand and let him be on the right side of the law.’ Geoff felt like the perfect guy for this part,” Nemec says.

Of course, “Happy Town” is a show about suspense, so the low crime rate spikes abruptly in episode one when a local man is murdered in an ice house. What’s more, the town is still trying to get over the memory of The Magic Man, a mysterious figure who’s credited with seven unsolved abductions over seven years.

“He had the ability to make people disappear so completely it bordered on the mystical,” explains yet another mysterious resident of Happy Town, Merritt Grieves (Sam Neill), who owns a movie memorabilia store that thrives despite its lack of customers.

“Here’s a town that’s had a quiet spell,” says Nemec. “When things start to get bad again, that’s when people’s secrets start to bubble back to the surface.”

Almost every resident of Happy Town — from the newest, Henley (Lauren German), to Sheriff Conroy to Tommy Conroy’s babysitter, Georgia (Sarah Gadon) — seems to be harboring a secret. But unlike most TV series that are based on a mythology, “Happy Town” raises a question and then answers it almost immediately.

“We are trying to shoot for something that’s a little unique,” Nemec says. “But we don’t want to frustrate the audience, so we’ve thought about how we can give up as many secrets as the ones we were hiding.”